Impossible Choice
by ncfan
Summary: Pretty soon she's going to have to choose, choose between her would-be lover and her best friend, and when that day comes everything may well fall apart. /She's damned if she does, damned if she doesn't./


If you want to see me write about a certain character or character combination, tune in to the poll on my profile. Oh, and if you want to read a oneshot that catalogs Sakura and Sasuke's relationship from Sasuke's point of view, read my oneshot _Sometimes_, and please review.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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Sakura knows that, sooner or later, she is going to have to choose.

Throughout her life, Sakura has always hated making the big choices, because of the pain that she knows those decisions will bring her. She didn't choose between her mother who had honored her husband's decision to break away from the Haruno clan, and her grandparents who wanted to accept her back into the fold. She didn't choose between being weak and being strong, because even when she was strong she was being strong off of Ino's back.

But she knows that the day will come when she has to choose between Sasuke and Naruto.

Ever since the days they were first made a genin team, Sakura has had some strange sensation that eventually she will have to choose between them. She doesn't know why she's picking up on these foreboding feelings at the time, and brushes the sensation aside as one would swat away a fly.

And the choice seems so stupid too. It is obvious, perfectly obvious that her choice is Sasuke, because who would want to choose Naruto, loud-mouthed (_"Don't you ever shut up?!"_), orange-wearing (_"That color screams "kill me."_), outcast (_"It's so sad. Why doesn't anyone seem to like him? I mean, he's not all bad."_) Naruto?

It is needless to even compare the two when there is an obvious disparity in their level of merits. So, Sakura asks, why should she have to choose?

Sakura is sure at first that there is no need, but as time moves on, she is not so sure anymore.

One day, on a stone roof where hospital bed sheets are left to dry after being washed, they fight. Sakura can see anger in Naruto's eyes and murder in Sasuke's, and for the first time Sakura realizes that there may come a time when she will be forced to choose. But she does not. She does not choose. She puts it off as she always does.

_Maybe if I had chosen then, just gone with one or the other, this all might not have happened._

Sasuke leaves, leaving her draped limply over an ice-cold, warmth-sucking bench, and Naruto goes chasing after him, and the cycle of bloodshed, violence, and heartbreak starts up in earnest. While they are both gone, Sakura's world turns to ash, or so she thinks (_The _real _burning comes later after everything is dead and gone_), and she prays that they will both come home so she doesn't have to choose.

Bitter, battered and scarred, Naruto returns to Konoha, and he returns alone. Alone. Without Sasuke. Sakura does not encourage Naruto one way or the other, and she manages to content herself that she has chosen. That she has chosen not to choose.

But as they grow, as she and Naruto become stronger and the violence escalates and the stakes grow higher, Sakura begins to realize that neutrality isn't an option anymore.

Naruto has entered the four-tailed transformation. He's not human anymore, he's not Naruto. His body is coated in roiling black chakra, having taken on the appearance of a monstrous four-tailed fox; his eyes are neither human nor blue. He lifts his head to the sun and screams, and everything within Sakura collapses in a fiery implosion, because of what she hears in those screams.

Anger. Rage. Sadness. Pain. Longing. Loneliness.

And later, seeing Sasuke for the first time in three years, Sakura realizes what she has done by standing on the sidelines.

They will always hurt each other, battle each other, try to kill each other, because they are in a cycle, a cycle begun decades ago and it will not end until one of them perishes.

If Sakura chooses, and chooses wrong, everything may well fall apart.

But if she does not choose, if she simply decides to wash her hands of the conflict, then everything _will_ fall apart, Sasuke and Naruto _will_ kill each other, and the world will burn in the crossfire.

Everything depends on her. And she hates that.

_Why should I have to be the one that turns the tide? Why should this important choice rest on me? Why should I have to be the one who decides their fates?_

_It's an impossible choice. Who could live with themselves, having to make a choice like that?_

She will have to choose. Choose between Sasuke and Naruto.

Sasuke.

_My unrequited, one true love._

_The supposed grand passion of my life._

_The one who never did anything but hurt me._

_The one who abandoned me, never acknowledged me, always snubbed and insulted me._

Naruto.

_Loud-mouthed brat._

_Dead-last, loser, never amount to anything._

_The one who swore he'd never leave me._

_My best friend._

She is going to have to choose between them, and Sakura just prays, always prays, that she will have the strength to make the right choice.

"_I loved you," Sakura whispers._

_Above their heads, explosions rock the area and the midday rain still falls gently, despite the fact that the sun has come back out. The explosions send rubble flying everywhere, crashing all around them. Among the rubble that was once Konohagakure, Sakura can see a head of blond hair that is hardly blond anymore for the blood coating it, and she tears her eyes away from the sight as her field of vision blurs._

"_I know." Sasuke's voice is just as emotionless as always, just as cold and flat, and his eyes are mocking her as she closes her hand around his throat and twists. A sickening crunch fills the air, and his body is tossed aside once it goes limp._

_She has killed the man who has become Konoha's greatest enemy, but she takes no satisfaction in his death, because she knows that the best part of her died with all those who were killed on that day, and that if she had just been a little more decisive a little sooner, this could have been avoided._

_Sakura bows her head, feeling the bubbling tears spill hot and unwanted over her cheeks (_Or maybe it's just the rain, _she thinks_, please just let it be the rain)_, her fists clenching in and out as the sounds of battle finally begin to fade away and her mind wanders, shell-shocked and deafened._

_She made her choice. But she chose too late._


End file.
